


Escort

by wanderingsmith



Category: The Expendables (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 00:29:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3670758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingsmith/pseuds/wanderingsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas was ranting loudly about people who tried to pass off shit as antiques; unreasonably pissed, complete with waving hands, as they left the knife-seller's booth, and Doc watched with interest as he started to walk.  Right toward a maze of hanging cloth fluttering in the lazy heat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Escort

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I ain't got no money, and nobody'd be daft enough to pay me for this. As it is thought, so let it be said; you make the toys, I play with 'em.
> 
> Bit o' nonsense :)

Christmas was ranting loudly about people who tried to pass off shit as antiques; unreasonably pissed, complete with waving hands, as they left the knife-seller's booth, and Doc watched with interest as he started to walk. Right toward a maze of hanging cloth fluttering in the lazy heat.

He didn't quite see, at first, how the man avoided what would have no doubt turned into an ugly international incident.

Until he looked down from the fetching pale blue scarf trying to catch on Barney's nodding tweed beret. And caught sight of his old friend's hand moving from its midair position just behind Christmas to touch the hyper brit's hip.

Doc's eyes rose in slow surprise to see the still wildly ranting man in jeans and the weirdest cammo shirt Doc'd ever seen blindly step around a woman in a black hijab and her three kids. Never seeing them as he went from glaring, unseeing, vaguely toward Barney, to rolling his eyes at the sky, mouth going a mile a minute and accent gotten too thick for Doc's not-familiar enough ear to decipher.

Doc's mouth hung somewhere between a grin, and being open in shock as Barney repeated the move all the way through the crowded couple hundred yards to the parking lot where their transport was parked, ending up walking so close that his raggedy British surplus khaki jacket half-hid Christmas' eyesore. When Doc glanced at the quiet team around him, the kids were giving the stalls bored looks while the old gang chatted together, each with an unsurprised eye on their leader and his still muttering and waving second in command.

Until a few feet from the truck, Christmas suddenly stopped, Barney's midair hand coming to rest on his back as the man didn't stop quite quick enough.

And Doc smirked as Barney's bosom-buddy blinked at the rusted piece of shit Barney'd found for them to use before looking around at the parking lot as though confused how he'd gotten there. Then turned his head to look at the.. fuck; Doc rolled his eyes. The *indulgent* smile Barney was giving him. And the arm that was still on the knifeman's back.

He felt the thickening silence behind him and was sure the lot of them were staring at the little scene just as close as he was. 

Barney's expression never wavered as Christmas aimed a smirk at him, "Just how often d'you do that?" Damn good question, Doc thought to himself, thinking how Barney's moves had been way too lazy and confident to be new.

"Don't know what you're talking about, Christmas."

A half-dozen people snorting at the same time made enough noise that the two mercenaries quit their damn flirting and turned to Doc and the others before the blandly innocent evasion got a reply.

\--

If it wasn't one damn thing, it was another. Lee smiled a mouthful of teeth at their team and snarled, "Lot of you get in the damn rust bucket unless you want to be left in bloody Baghdad!"

Returning the lazy fingers aimed at him, he waited until the last Expendable passed him and Barney before covering the inches between their sides to lean his mouth to Barney's ear as he dropped a hand, "Let me escort *your* ass to your seat."

The smirk Barney sent him was at least more familiar than that too-fond look from a second ago. But allowing Lee to fondle him, even under the excuse of shoving him to the passenger door, without a word, was.. weird. He gave the man a glance as they rounded the hood, asking more seriously than before, "What are you up to, Barney?"

"Ain't up ta nothin', Christmas."

Right. 

It wasn't as though he *minded*, for fuck's sake! 

Smiling a little, pain in the ass job's leftover stress finally dissipated with that satisfying vent, Lee crowded Barney back against the door with his body, fingertips just reaching the roof of the cab, glad the back of the truck was covered so their erstwhile colleagues weren't privy to this, "OK, then what are you up *for*?" 

Leaning back against the hot metal, Barney just looked at him steady; serious, but relaxed. "You really need to ask that, Lee?"

It only took a few seconds staring into those eyes to convince himself. "No." He reached a hand down to grip the handle, leaning in to deliberately rub his whiskers against Barney's jaw. Grinning at the wordless grunt of discomfort, he whispered, "I sleep on the left." And pulled the door open, forcing Barney to straighten, giving Lee a narrow-eyed look of annoyance.

Lee just grinned back, swaggering his way to the driver's door. From fake katanas to Barney finally making and sticking by a physical overture. 

Life was suddenly looking *way* up!


End file.
